sometimes during physics class, the teacher explains something, and everyone nods about, and then he asks if anyone has any questions, do they understand, etc, they nod too. then the teacher continues. this repeats for some part of a lecture.
then teacher gives a few practice problems. and nobody remotely has a clue on how to do it.
upon looking at some of the paper of the students, it becomes very apparent that they did not understand the first part of the lecture. and the rest is basically lost as it depends on the first part……
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When listening to math talks I often have the experience of understanding some preliminary background, then there is just something I don’t understand, and it all goes downhill from there. the rest of the talk just feels like spitting out jargon……
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So I do know how it feels to be on the receiving end. Although math talks are really intended for like experts in the field, and aren’t intended to convey full detail, usually. But the feeling of being quite fatally lost is the same. (not criticizing math talks, really, it’s hard to do better because of the depth required and technical detail)
I’ve been on the teaching end too. And I’ve seen all of this from a neutral bystander perspective, when TA’ing for physics.
it’s not very fun, or efficient, on any of the sides.
when i’m with my competitive programmer friends, this happens too. someone explains a solution and it makes like 0 sense to me.
what happens, usually, is someone (like me) asks questions, until it becomes clear what is actually happening. this sometimes (often) takes longer than the initial explanation.
of course, there are times when i just give up on trying to understand it, it’s just too deep for me. but surely these are not the majority……
when i’m lecturing, oftentimes i just get the strange feeling that to the audience, i’m “just saying words” (— someone), and that i’ve already lost them like 5 minutes ago and the past 5 minutes of lecturing has been a waste of time for both me and them.
but i ask whether anyone understands or has questions, and they just nod along.
so what do i do????????
do i just lecture along, knowing that most of it will probably be wasted?
do i just stop?
was my lecture too hard in the first place? but like, to make it any easier would literally make it pointless…. at least, imo, to go any easier would be like too easy…
or is it a me problem, and i should be more willing to teach basic content?
am i just too bad and skill issue at teaching?
or, perhaps, it was hopeless to begin with?
